17) Numbers and Counting

Question 1

What is Relative Numerosity discrimination?

Answer 1

Ability to discriminate between sets of items on the basis of relative number of items they contain

Question 2

What is an example of Relative numerosity discrimination?

Answer 2

Emmerton, Lohmann & Niemann 1997

Trained pigeons to discriminate between few and many items

Question 3

What is the concept of absolute number?

Answer 3

A number is not related to what you are counting, its an abstract and unrelated thing

Question 4

What is an example of absolute number?

Answer 4

Matsuzawa (1985)

Chimp had to select one of six response keys when shown array of pencils. Achieved +90% accuracy

Question 5

What could the animals be doing instead of distinguishing numbers?

Answer 5

Perceptual matching

Question 6

How did Matsuzawa (1985) argue it wasn’t perceptual matching?

Answer 6

Could transfer the ability to arrays of different items

Question 7

What other aspects could animals be using to pass the absolute number test?

Answer 7

Time and space

Question 8

What did Meck & Church (1983) also believe was a potential confound of absolute number test?

Answer 8

Serially presented items

Question 9

What did Meck & Church (1983) test?

Answer 9

Trained rats with two signals after either 2 or 8 pulses of noise then press either left or right lever response

Question 10

What was a potential confound of Meck & Church (1983)?

Answer 10

The animals were responding on the basis of total time

Question 11

How did Meck & Church (1983) reduce the effect of total times effect?

Answer 11

Tested with stimuli lasting same amount of time but different number of pulses

Should be impossible is using time to distinguish

Question 12

What did Davis & Bradford (1986) test?

Answer 12

Rats exposed to plank of food but experimenter shouted once they ate a certain amount. When they ate the right number they were praised

Question 13

How did Gelman & Gallistel (1978) believe about ability to count?

Answer 13

Argued that counting involves mapping
numerosity onto a label that represents that numerosity.
-Animals must use nonverbal labels (numerons)

Question 14

What 3 principles does the process of counting involve?

Answer 14

-One to one principle
-Stable order principle
-Cardinal principle

Question 15

What is the One to one principle?

Answer 15

in which each item is assigned only one neuron

Question 16

What is the Stable order principle?

Answer 16

Numerons must always be assigned in
the same order

Question 17

What is the Cardinal principle?

Answer 17

The final numeron assigned applies to the
whole display

Question 18

What did Dacke & Srinivasan (2008) test?

Answer 18

Bees were trained that sucrose would be given at certain landmark intervals

-Found bees could count to 4
-Can be transferred to novel items

Question 19

What did Brannon & Terrace (2000) test?

Answer 19

If Chimps can understand representation of number

Question 20

How did Brannon & Terrace (2000) test chimps

Answer 20

-Trained to order arrays of 1-4 items in different orders

Question 21

What did Brannon & Terrace (2000) find?

Answer 21

They could learn ascending and descending orders, but not the arbitrary order 1-3-2-4

Question 22

What did Brannon & Terrace (2000) find when testing novel displays of 5-9 items?

Answer 22

The chimp taught an ascending order could generalise to higher numbers
-BUT the one taught descending order needed further training

Question 23

What did Boysen & Berntson (1989) study?

Answer 23

If chimps have ability to do arithmetic

Question 24

How did Boysen & Berntson (1989) test chimps on arithmetic?

Answer 24

-Trained to label number of objects in different formats for numbers 0-4
-Had to find oranges around an area and then indicate an arabic numeral that represented the sum
-When used cars with numbers written on, could also successfully complete the task

Question 25

What did Boysen & Bertson (1995) test?

Answer 25

If when choosing between two groups of food, that they could distinguish the first they chose was given to another chimp and they got what was left

Question 26

What did Boysen & Bertson (1995) find?

Answer 26

They were completely unable to solve this task unless the food was substituted by numerals